


Tied

by zhadrahni (cammeh)



Series: Nuisance [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-01
Updated: 2009-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cammeh/pseuds/zhadrahni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard for a man who thought he was dead to re-learn how to live. Marco gives Ace a little push. After all, pirates are meant to be free.  (series was written before the end of the rescue-Ace arc, and so diverges from canon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tied

**Author's Note:**

> Old Man Whitebeard is conspicuously absent in this series of snippets. This is not necessarily because he is dead in this 'verse, but basically, I didn't know what the outcome was going to be when I wrote these, so I decided to wait and see what Oda did. Please allow this to account for why Marco is the one always bossing Ace around, and if you prefer to believe WB survived in this series, just assume that he's recuperating slowly somewheres off-camera, which is perfectly valid as I hadn't decided either way at the time.

It was only understandable, after that whole hellish mess. They _all_ stayed a little closer, were more aware of each other, more careful. There were fewer of them, now, after all.

But Ace, well...The Whitebeard Pirates were a little reluctant to let him out of their _sight_. It might, perhaps, maybe, kind of...border on paranoia, sometimes, though nobody was going to admit that. They were justified, dammit. Good thing he seemed inclined to be the same way about them; saved them some inconvenience. If he wanted to stay within constant arm's reach, certainly no one was about to kick him _out_.

But when a month passed, then two, and the entire time Ace scarcely made a twitch toward his beloved skiff, rescued and tied temptingly to their main ship, Marco knew this couldn't last.

Even before he left to chase Teach, Ace had delighted in haring off from the main fleet on brief excursions of his own, taking advantage of his insane, logia-powered speed for mundane errands and zipping about to single-handedly challenge uppity rivals. Marco was assured that this had been the case even when the kid had been captaining the Spades, although his absences were of necessity much shorter, then—often only hours. But they still happened, and with fair frequency, no matter how often the kid was scolded.

Now...He hadn't set foot off the Moby Dick in more than three weeks, and even that had only been when their entire fleet was hijacked to a party island by that Red-Haired and his crew, irked from missing the original “Still Alive, Dammit! Fuck You, World Government!” relief bashes with the Straw-Hats and their legion of allies. (The idiot Yonkou insisted that fighting Kaidou—and their many other pirate enemies, besides, he claimed—and keeping them from interfering meant that he and his were as much a part of the rescue effort as anybody, though except for Ace the Whitebeards sneered at them for not being at Marinford.)

As much as Marco wanted to think that this sudden homebody-ness was just because Ace was recovering, or that he was content now, to stay surrounded by his crew always, after so nearly losing them—that he no longer felt the need to scream across the wide sea as a single tiny speck of a soul, for however short a time—the phoenix Zoan knew better. He knew _Ace_. It was just this D's nature.

So while without a doubt the fire logia was sincerely, with his whole heart, _glad_ to be reunited with his family—what had been a hope beyond hope—that _wasn't_ why he was suddenly refusing to shift off their boat. Wasn't why he  considerately pretended not to know that his nakama were stalking him on their own ship with a secret schedule of oh-so-casual shift-changes. Wasn't why he _kept on_ giving Marco's eyepatch irritatingly woobly looks when he thought the older man wasn't looking, until Marco got sick of it and roundhouse kicked him into the sky for a flurried tangle of blue and orange fire to prove that he was hardly disabled and could still kick the brat logia's ass, thank you very much. It w asn't why he hadn't gotten in any _other_ fights _,_ no matter how many times Jozu stole his dessert and doodled on his face when he passed out in his food.

And though they all appreciated Ace hanging around—oh, certainly they did, the unashamed mother-hens—Marco could see the kid getting wilder and wilder around the eyes with each day of his self-enforced grounding, no matter how determinedly he tried to hide it.

“Ace,” he flagged the kid down and suppressed a sigh at how promptly and attentively Ace came running. Yeah, the crew's pathetic separation anxiety might hurt a bit—Marco not excepted, dammit—but this self-stifling guilt trip needed to end. It wasn't healthy, and the world was  _not_ going to end if Ace left the ship again, no matter how anybody's gut felt about it. 

“We've run out of firecracker cigars,” the 1st division commander said blithely, clapping a hand on Ace's shoulder but keeping his eyes on his hastily scribbled 'grocery list' as he hustled them to the ship's railing. “And tangerines, and rope, and sword oil and—I don't know, eh, some other shit, but the closest place that stocks those cigars is the port at Wakewater Island. Hop over and grab us these supplies, eh?”

“But the Tibony cluster of cyclone whirlpools is between here and there,” Ace protested, automatically taking the scrap of paper shoved at him. He couldn't stop his eyes from sliding to Striker's mooring hungrily or his hands from twitching in eagerness at the thought of those raging pools, though he immediately flicked his gaze back to Marco and the crew guiltily. “Uh, it'll take me all day to go around, I couldn't possibly—”

“Get off this ship before I punt you off, eh,” Marco snapped, then added belatedly, “We both know you can handle Tibony, and you _know_ how we 1 st division get without our firecracker cigars. So be _quick_ about it, eh.”

He barely bit his tongue in time to keep from blurting, “Make sure to be back by sundown, eh,” like a fucking idiot, and reminded himself that a flaming blue bird in the sky was not at all subtle and Ace was not a fool and knew very well how to look up. 

Ace was still making reluctant noises, but when Marco kicked him in the shin he hopped around nursing it dramatically and grinning, then turned away and pulled his hat down to hide the jagged and relieved and  _grateful_ edges of his real expression as he swung obediently over the rail. Then he paused and turned halfway back.

“Back in a flash, birdy,” he promised, then shouted a laugh and dropped down to his skiff to duck the swipe of a fiery blue wing. 

Marco turned away as Striker's massive turbine roared to life, suppressing his own grin—until he registered the long faces of the crew all around him. Vista's  _moustache_ was even drooping, the moron. 

“Oh cut it out, he'll be back before we know it, eh,” Marco huffed, and that this was without a doubt true didn't stop him from digging his nails into his palm and watching with the rest of them as the bright flare of Ace's figure receded rapidly in the distance.


End file.
